Explore "The Serenade (Sonnets)" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The midnight is not more bewildering / To her drowsed eyes, than to her ears, the sound / Of dim, sweet singing voices, interwound / With purl of flute and subtle twang of string, / Strained through the lattice, where the roses cling / And, with their fragrance, waft the notes around / Her haunted senses. Thirsting beyond bound / Of her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swing / Of the mysterious delirious tune, / She drains like some strange opiate, with awed eyes / Upraised against her casement, where aswoon, / The stars fail from her sight, and up the skies / Of alien azure rolls the full round moon / Like some vast bubble blown of summer noon.